I have friends and family who want to keep up with me and in touch, so I created this blog as a way for me to tell them all the news and stories they want to hear, and on their own time. I also hope to give others an understanding of what it means to serve in the IDF and the service those who do serve are doing.

Sunday, September 11, 2011

Bochan Gadsar

This past week I passed the bochan gadsar, a combat fitness and combat shooting test. The test is run in full combat uniform, vest with 6 full magazines, a liter and half of water in canteens or in a camelback, and ones personal weapon.

The test starts with a two kilometer run, which opens with climbing over a wall, parallel bars, and monkey bars. The obstacles are but 200 meters or so of the two kilometers. At the end of the two kilometers one is back at the wall, and begins some 500 meters of obstacles. There is again the wall, parallel bars, monkey bars, followed by a 6 meter rope climb, a high crawl, climb up to and a walk on a log two meters above the ground, a pyramid, and finally a low crawl. At the end of the obstacles is an open run of 700 meters to the finish line.

I started the test on a bad foot by struggling to get over the wall, but gave a good sprint to make up lost time on the rest of the obstacles and finished them first in my heat. On the rest of the two kilometers I made excellent time and was over the wall by 10:30. I made it over the obstacles with no problem, and stood up from the low crawl at just before 14:30 on my watch. From here I could see the finish line, and began to give the run everything. Along the way I began to pass other guys, who had been in the heat before me, and the whole way I kept saying to my self just break 17:00 minutes, nothing matters after that. I ran exactly 17:00 minutes, close but missed by a second. My results for the run is excellent, its the second best in my platoon to date and in the top ten percent of the company.

The second half of the test is the combat shooting stress test. After a short break of 10th minutes or less one enters the range and is assigned a target. Once targets are handed out and everyone has placed his magazine before the target we line up outside. We lie down on our stomachs for the start of the test. The test is a 10th meter crawl, 90 meter run, turn around and 100 meters back to the range. We enter the range and return to our target, which is a paper tzevet shaped like a head at 40 meters. We fire three rounds kneeling, and three in the prone position. The minimum numbering hits to pass depends on ones run time. 20:00 - 19:20 is six out of six, 19:20 - 18:40 is five out of six, and under 18:40 is four out of six. I only had to hit four to pass. One who fails the shooting does the test from the beginning, yes running included. The time allotted to the shooting test is 1:40.

I start out strong being one of the first back to the range, but I can feel the deep muscular exhaustion, and exhausted muscles twitch, ruining ones shot. I line upon my target and get into a tight stance and place the red dot right on target, and ham! a good shot, but my bolt does not come back forward like it should, and I quick as possible clear the jam. I am now afraid I don't have enough time, so the next two rounds are quick and miss. I now know the next three in the prone position must hit, and each round gets the time it deserves. All three hit. PASS! What a great feeling hardest part of the course behind me.